The Safe Path Through Suffering
June 23, 2024
Preached by Ron Smith
Scripture Reading
Jeremiah 20:1-18
1 Now Pashhur the priest, the son of Immer, who was chief officer in the house of the Lord, heard Jeremiah prophesying these things. 2 Then Pashhur beat Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks that were in the upper Benjamin Gate of the house of the Lord. 3 The next day, when Pashhur released Jeremiah from the stocks, Jeremiah said to him, “The Lord does not call your name Pashhur, but Terror on Every Side. 4 For thus says the Lord: Behold, I will make you a terror to yourself and to all your friends. They shall fall by the sword of their enemies while you look on. And I will give all Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon. He shall carry them captive to Babylon, and shall strike them down with the sword. 5 Moreover, I will give all the wealth of the city, all its gains, all its prized belongings, and all the treasures of the kings of Judah into the hand of their enemies, who shall plunder them and seize them and carry them to Babylon. 6 And you, Pashhur, and all who dwell in your house, shall go into captivity. To Babylon you shall go, and there you shall die, and there you shall be buried, you and all your friends, to whom you have prophesied falsely.”
7 O Lord, you have deceived me,
and I was deceived;
you are stronger than I,
and you have prevailed.
I have become a laughingstock all the day;
everyone mocks me.
8 For whenever I speak, I cry out,
I shout, “Violence and destruction!”
For the word of the Lord has become for me
a reproach and derision all day long.
9 If I say, “I will not mention him,
or speak any more in his name,”
there is in my heart as it were a burning fire
shut up in my bones,
and I am weary with holding it in,
and I cannot.
10 For I hear many whispering.
Terror is on every side!
“Denounce him! Let us denounce him!”
say all my close friends,
watching for my fall.
“Perhaps he will be deceived;
then we can overcome him
and take our revenge on him.”
11 But the Lord is with me as a dread warrior;
therefore my persecutors will stumble;
they will not overcome me.
They will be greatly shamed,
for they will not succeed.
Their eternal dishonor
will never be forgotten.
12 O Lord of hosts, who tests the righteous,
who sees the heart and the mind,
let me see your vengeance upon them,
for to you have I committed my cause.
13 Sing to the Lord;
praise the Lord!
For he has delivered the life of the needy
from the hand of evildoers.
14 Cursed be the day
on which I was born!
The day when my mother bore me,
let it not be blessed!
15 Cursed be the man who brought the news to my father,
“A son is born to you,”
making him very glad.
16 Let that man be like the cities
that the Lord overthrew without pity;
let him hear a cry in the morning
and an alarm at noon,
17 because he did not kill me in the womb;
so my mother would have been my grave,
and her womb forever great.
18 Why did I come out from the womb
to see toil and sorrow,
and spend my days in shame?
Today we are getting an up close and personal look into the life of this prophet, Jeremiah. We are not going to be looking at his prophecies, but rather the effects that his prophecies were having on his life. It’s not a pretty picture. Being the messenger of destruction, took a toll on Jeremiah. Here in chapter 20, we find one of his laments that resulted from what he was going through.
You may not have thought much about lamenting and yet, it is something we have all engaged in to varying degrees. I say that because I think we all as human beings realize that things just aren’t right. There are times that the realization that things aren’t right smacks us in the face and sucks the wind right out of our soul. There are those times when the injustice of a situation, or the acute suffering we face, or the lies we are told, are just so overwhelming we don’t know how to express what we feel. Maybe to be more specific we see the world is not right when we face problems in our marriages, loved ones die, sickness pushes us to the ends of ourselves, addiction enslaves a loved one, wayward children refuse to listen to the sweet music of the gospel, the bully of school just won’t stop, or our culture seems to be going off the deep end. How do we respond to these things? I am sure that just the mention of some of these more specific examples, illicit tender emotion that lurks just under the surface. Life is just not right. And we feel it.
The Bible offers us a way to deal with those times of deep pain and sorrow through lament. Lament is the path to hope in the midst of suffering.
Jeremiah offers us an example of lament in this passage. And to set us up for his lament we read of the situation that he endured that brought it about in the first 6 verses. A priest, named Pashhur, has Jeremiah beaten and then put on display in the stocks because of the message of destruction he had just delivered. In addition, to this we learn through the rest of the chapter that people are mocking him and even his own friends are watching for his downfall.
Before we move forward and see how Jeremiah responds to this situation, let’s take a minute to talk about what lament is and then spend the rest of our time discovering the proper way to do it as we look at his life.
What It Is
Lament is an open and frank emotional conversation with the Lord about the difficult situations happening in your life. At times those emotions are so strong that they feel like a raging storm brewing inside of you. In the Bible we see lament everywhere. People calling out to the Lord with their complaints, expressing their pain, describing their situations, asking for the Lord’s help, and, during it all, we see their faith and trust in the Lord. Lament is not a lack of faith, but an expression of our faith.
So that is what lament is. Now let’s see how to do it.
How To Do It
Admittedly, there are some dangers we need to avoid as we journey in lament. There are things we can do that will be less helpful or even harmful to us and pull us in the opposite direction than true Biblical lament wants to take us. So, let’s use the image of a pothole ridden country road to help us navigate lament. There are potholes to avoid, and safe passage to look for. Not safe in the sense of easy – “ if you will only do these things I am going to suggest to you, you can quickly and easily come out of your suffering.” It’s a long hard road as we will see. Let’s go through the passage and identify the potholes and the safe passage through the street called lament.
Starting in verse 7 we move into the Jeremiah’s lament. Here we see some of that raw emotion that comes bubbling to the surface.
Safe step: focus on God. Notice that Jeremiah is focused on God. Lament is a holy act when it is focused on the Lord. This is the first safe step we can take in lament: direct our lament to God. We see Jeremiah’s Godward gaze in his language. The first two words from his mouth in verse 7 are “O Lord.” He continues speaking to the Lord saying, “you have deceived me…you are strong than I, you have prevailed.” He goes on speaking of the Lord in the 3rd person, vs 9, “If I say, ‘I will not mention him or speak any more in his name.’” And he continues to address the Lord throughout the rest. Jeremiah orients his complaints to the Lord. He is having an open and frank emotional conversation with the Lord about the difficulties in his life.
Pothole: focus inwardly. If focusing on God is the safe passage to take, the pothole to avoid is reversing that by focusing inwardly. Simply voicing our frustration and our complaints with no regard for God at all. Just getting things off our chest. Venting – yelling, punching holes in walls, kicking the dog, breaking things... Yeah, it will help for a bit. We might feel good and even justified. But the situation is not changed, people around us are not edified. And, having an inward focus, actually reveals our lack of faith. By venting, we are saying the situation is hopeless. No one can do anything. Change is impossible. But that’s not true. It might be silly, but think of the “complaint or suggestion” box at a restaurant. If Amy and I go and have a meal that I am less than impressed with and then as we get into the car I start complaining about all the things wrong with the restaurant, what good does it do? But if I took a moment and filled out one of those little cards and put it in the box, well, maybe something might be done. If you have a complaint, you need to go to the one who can do something about it. We need to take the safe step and direct our lament to the Lord.
Safe step: express emotion. The next safe step in our passage on the pothole ridden road is to embrace the emotion. Express the emotion. The people who lament in the Bible are not trying to hide their emotion. If we are directing our lament to the Lord, this means letting him know how you feel. Look with me at how Jeremiah unloads his grief. He starts off in verse 7 saying that he feels like the Lord has deceived him. “O Lord, you have deceived me and I was deceived.” This word deceive is a tricky word to translate. It could mean deceived or persuaded. Either way, he feels like he was talked into doing something that he now regrets. Of course, the Lord did not deceive him. God told him back in chapter 1 that the people will be against him. But the pain is greater than he had anticipated. I think we even see his pain in verse 9. “If I say, “I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,” there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.” We often look at that verse as a triumphal message. We might say today, Jeremiah was on fire for the Lord. But I think in context this verse hints at the agony he is feeling. It’s not pleasant what he is going through. The hurts are real. And even though he wants to stop, he can’t. The only thing he can do is declare God’s word and move deeper into pain.
Pothole: hide emotions. So, appropriately, we try to avoid pain. Hide from the deep emotions that hurt so bad. But this is a pothole to avoid. Some of us think that it is more mature to bottle up our emotions, to be stoic. This is simply not true. Not expressing our emotions is like a debt we have that is accruing interest. Sooner or later, we are going to have to pay the debt. The emotion will come out. It could come out later in life. Or it might come out in hurtful ways. Bottling up emotions can lead to outburst of anger towards those we love. It could have effects on us physically. At the end of the day, by trying to avoid emotions, they end up enslaving us. And of course, expressing emotions are going to look differently for everyone. (Not out of control expression of emotions either!) We don’t need to be afraid to express our emotions and complaints to the Lord. He loves us. He invites us to cast our burdens upon him.
Safe step: Accept the Lord’s solution. The safe path forward is to direct our complaints to the Lord and express our emotions and not bottle them up. The next step is to accept the Lord’s solution. I know this sounds obvious, but we probably all know from experience that the Lord’s solution is not always the easiest or the fastest. In the case of Jeremiah, he correctly identifies the problem, but tries to grasp the wrong solution. Let’s look at verse 8. For whenever I speak, I cry out, I shout, “Violence and destruction!” For the word of the Lord has become for me a reproach and derision all day long. Jeremiah identifies the problem: the proclaiming of God’s word - the prophecies that the Lord has given him to prophesy. He’s right, that’s what is causing him his pain. What’s the solution? Well, if we keep reading in verse 9 we see his proposal: If I say, “I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,” there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot. The solution for Jeremiah is to simply hold in God’s word. But the problem is that his solution creates further problems to the point that he says, “I am weary with holding it in.” We must follow the Lord’s solution even when it leads to more pain. We may not understand why we are suffering, but the Lord will lead us through it.
=Pothole: trust our own solution. And so, the pothole we need to avoid is assuming we know the best solution. Have you ever done that? Assume you know the best solution for what you are facing? When we were preparing to go to Italy 15 years ago, we subtly thought that we are going to go, proclaim God’s word, see a thriving church planted, experience that thriving church multiply, train up pastors, see revival. Then we arrived in Italy and well, it didn’t happen that way. It was difficult. It is a long process. Why does the Lord work like that? I have no idea. But the temptation is to reach for other solutions. Forget proclaiming the gospel and try and simply make friends. Forget trying to be a church and just do a bunch of social activities. We probably could have drawn a bigger crowd that way. But those are not the Lord’s solutions. When we are lamenting because of real difficulties we are facing, directing our complaints to the Lord, expressing our emotions to him, we must be determined to surrender our solution at his feet and trust where he is leading us.
Safe step: embrace the process. This brings me to the next safe step, that is we need to embrace the process. In lament we are walking by faith not by sight. Faith in the Lord. This means there are assumptions we are making about God when we lament (in a good way) – he is just, he is in control, he is merciful, he is good. To make it more personal we assume that: he hears us, he is able and willing to act on our behalf, he loves us, he protects us. Lament is not a lack of faith, but a way to grasp hold of God’s promises.
Pothole: claim the promise without the process. But often times we want to claim the promise without the process. This is a pothole we need to avoid. In verses 11-13 Jeremiah very directly expresses his faith as he praises the Lord despite his pain and suffering. Look at verse 13, Sing to the Lord; praise the Lord! For he has delivered the life of the needy from the hand of evildoers. What a great promise! The Lord delivers the life of the needy from the hand of evildoers. Jeremiah knows this and believes this. However, what we see in this passage is that the way the Lord delivers is not what we might have in mind. We want to claim this promise and have the Lord deliver us instantaneously. But repeatedly in the Bible we just don’t see that happening. What we do see is that God is with us in the difficulty, in our suffering. Lament offers us the opportunity to lay claim to God’s promises and see him work them out in our life through our hardships.
Safe step: endure unfinished work. The last safe step forward as we walk through our suffering and express our lament to the Lord, is to be willing to put up with unfinished work. The healing, the restoration, the peace, the rest for our soul that we so desperately desire may not come right away. Lament can be a long journey. Be ready for the long haul. We see in verses 11-13 this beautiful declaration from Jeremiah of God’s faithfulness. And then we read in verse 14, “Cursed be the day on which I was born!” That is jarring. But the wound is still open. The praise he just expressed to the Lord, did not “heal” him. It is healing him, but his journey is not finished.
Pothole to avoid: expect the healing right away. I think in this therapeutic society that we live in today, we just expect to be healed right away. “I’ll pray, sing some songs to the Lord, then I will be fine.” But sometimes the pain remains. Notice the last words of Jeremiah’s lament in verse 18, Why did I come out from the womb to see toil and sorrow, and spend my days in shame? That is deep pain. When I came to verses 14-18, I wrote alongside of them, “What do we do with this?” Sometimes lament does not end with triumphal focus on God. The pain is quick to return and overwhelm us. But the journey is not over. Keep looking to the Lord. Be patient with the unfinished work he is doing in you.
Safe step to take
Focus on God.
Express emotion.
Accept the Lord’s solution.
Embrace the process.
Endure unfinished work.
Pothole to avoid
Focus inwardly.
Hide emotions.
Trust our own solution.
Claim the promise without the process.
Expect the healing right away.
My Lament
Our last year in Italy for me was a year of lament. I knew the Lord was moving us out of Italy which in and of itself was not easy. We had poured a lot of time and energy into ministry. We saw lots of failure along the way and there were bright spots where we saw the Lord moving in really encouraging ways. But on top of that feeling of loss, we were navigating a difficult situation with the church leadership. We weren’t seeing eye to eye and it was painful. I didn’t handle everything correctly and at the same time there were things I think were wrong that I needed to stand my ground on. About halfway through that year, Amy and I went to Jordan for 5 days. It unexpectedly turned out to be a meaningful time of lament for me. We really didn’t have any agenda, but one of the things we did was open our Bibles and look at the list of cities where the Israelites wandered before entering the promise land. Then we would google where those cities were and try to go and locate them. Usually there were 2 or three possibilities of where they were. At the same time we were doing that, I personally took time to read the passages in Numbers and Deuteronomy that describe those years. I really identified my lament with those wilderness years as I felt like I was in a wilderness time of my life. For me it came to a head on Mount Nebo. That is the place where the Bible tells us that Moses climbed up and looked out over the promise land. For whatever reason, it was at that moment the emotions just broke in me. I didn’t weep and wail, but the tears did flow and I remember crying out, “Lord I am done with the wilderness. Please take me out.” Did I feel better? Yeah, but I was still in the wilderness. I still had some of the process to go. Is my experience of lament drastic, extreme? Don’t people have a whole lot worse stories than that? Yes. Obviously. As I have heard your stories over the last 10 months, I realize that many of you have deep sorrow in your life. We could open the mic and be amazed at what people have walked through, and what they are walking through even in this moment. But one thing to keep in mind is that your pain is real. If we were to make a scale of the severity of lament with one being minor and 10 being severe, we see that lament does not have to be an 8, 9 or 10 in order to be worthy of being called lament. Yes, there is always someone with a worse story than yours, but the pain you walk through is real. And if you have a worse story than the person you are talking to, resist sharing that story, at least immediately. That person’s pain is real.
As we move towards the Lord’s Supper, I would like to ask one final question. Can we connect lamenting to Christ? The answer is yes. Christ’s lament produced our salvation. Our salvation came about in much pain and grief. In the Gospel of Luke we get a glimpse into the depth of Jesus’ lament the night before he was crucified. He took his disciples to the garden of Gethsemane to pray. This is what we read:
And he withdrew from them about a stone's throw, and knelt down and prayed, 42 saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” 43 And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. 44 And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.
Shortly after the soldiers arrive and carry him off to be tried and then crucified. Jesus has gone before us. He has walked the road of lament and come out on the other side. He will guide us through. He knows exactly what we need and when we need it. His grace will be sufficient. If you are here this morning and acknowledge that things are just not right in this life and have never embraced the living Jesus, I invite you to do that today. Let your lament come before him. He understands. He is able to help you. May we all direct our laments to the Lord, express our emotions to him, follow his solution, endure the process of applying his promises to our life, and patiently put up with his unfinished work in us.
I would like to ask the praise team to come back to the stage. And those who are helping with communion can come as well. As they do let’s go to the Lord in prayer.
As the team leads us in song, if you are a believer in Jesus you invited to participate in the Lord’s supper with us. We will come down the middle isle and then return to our seats from the outside isles and then wait on everyone so that we might eat and drink together.
Sermon Discussion Questions
What has been your experience with lament? Can you share something you have gone through?
What are the right and wrongs ways you expressed your lament?
What are things we should lament?
Sins of others should both anger us and break us. What would be the danger of only being angry at society’s sins?
Read Psalms 13 and 88. How would you describe lament from these Psalms? What are some of the elements of lament you see in them?
How can we help people journey through lament? What are harmful things we can do when trying to help?
What else in Jeremiah 20 do you observe about lament?